


freedom )...and all the while we scream...(

by josephina_x



Series: The Triangle Guy [9]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: ...Or is he?, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Bill isn’t Bill, Gen, Identity Issues, Post-Series, Post-Weirdmageddon, See You Next Summer, Two Years Later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 10:31:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13188234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephina_x/pseuds/josephina_x
Summary: The triangle in the woods. Bill and Stanley and Sixer are a problem that can’t be solved or untangled easily; this isn’t just a lack of communication issue. There is pain, and there is a looming threat that has been recognized, but that doesn’t mean that there is no sanctuary to be had, here.





	freedom )...and all the while we scream...(

**Author's Note:**

> Fic: freedom )...and all the while we scream…(  
> Fandom: Gravity Falls  
> Pairing: n/a  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Spoilers: through the end of the series, and some of the books (Journal #3)  
> Summary: The triangle in the woods. Bill and Stanley and Sixer are a problem that can’t be solved or untangled easily; this isn’t just a lack of communication issue. There is pain, and there is a looming threat that has been recognized, but that doesn’t mean that there is no sanctuary to be had, here.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, not for profit.  
> AN: I am effing evil sometimes, I am pretty sure. Enjoy your fic.

\---

Bill floats himself up, high above the trees, and he heads away from the Shack.

He floats, and floats, and floats.

And he thinks one more time, on Sixer.

And how Sixer is never, ever, _ever_ going to figure it out.

He thinks about Stanley, and their mutual helpless hatred of each other. How ‘ _you took Sixer away from me._ ’

Bill had been the one on the boat, the Stan o’War II, with Sixer -- not Stanley.

That hadn’t been Stanley; that had been **him**.

He’d been with Sixer through the aftermath of Weirdmageddon, putting the pieces back together. It had been _him_ who had agreed to traveling alongside Sixer on his adventures around the world, him _actually doing so_ as they’d sailed away on their new boat, and he’d been with Sixer and the kids for all of the following summer, as well.

Sixer hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t _realized_.

And it wasn’t as though Bill had known any better.

And then Bill had ended up back in his own body, and Stanley had gotten his own life and his body back, no longer being suppressed by the dream demon who’d been inhabiting him.

Of course Stanley can’t remember anything that happened in the meantime -- _it hadn’t been him_.

And Bill can just imagine what must have happened, at the end of last summer, thinking back on the broken ends of things that Sixer had felt fit to scream out at him, while he’d been helpless and caged in more than just his body -- when he’d been grey in his mind and broken in his soul without even knowing the reasons _why_.

Stanley doesn’t remember anything past their handshake, beyond getting possessed; Bill knows that from Sixer. So it had to have happened the same way that Bill had possessed Blendin -- just shoving Stanley down, not out like he had with Dipper -- because Bill is a demon, and Bill had been far stronger than Stanley, at the core of things. One good punch isn’t enough to knock him so far down that he can’t, and wouldn’t, claw his way right back up again, and he’d crawled right up and over the burned remains of Stanley Pines’ mind to do it.

So Stanley hadn’t remembered that the deal he’d made with his own brother was off -- how could he? Sixer had told Bill that, not him. Stanley hadn’t known that Sixer had changed his mind, that he hadn’t wanted Stanley to give him his name, his life, and his house back at the end of the summer anymore, once the kids were gone, in exchange for leaving the kids out of the dangerous things that he did when he could, and for no longer being his brother.

Stanley probably hadn’t even realized what _year_ it was.

Stanley had woken up, coming to his own senses for the first time in a year, and had almost certainly been completely confused. He must have woken up, gotten up, and heard Sixer say something about capturing Bill, seen him in the cage, and thought that everything he’d tried to do right had gone wrong yet again. That he’d been useless and screwed it all up somehow. That Sixer had had to step in and come up with a different, _workable_ solution, because, yet again, Stanley Pines had been good for absolutely nothing, and could do nothing right.

The day that Bill had ‘woken up’ in the right body again had been the last day of the summer; the kids had already been packed and ready to leave later that afternoon, and Stanley wouldn’t have waited around.

Stanley had come down to take one good look at Bill Cipher, the triangle that had nearly destroyed them all. Bill has a feeling now that Stanley had likely just done it to check and make sure that he really hadn’t been capable of doing anything else to Sixer, or anyone else, anymore. And then Stanley had left, just like he’d promised Sixer he would. Holding up his end of the mad bargain-deal that the older twin Pines had made with each other, just a few weeks before the sky had split open and madness had rained down on them all.

He’d likely packed a single bag, gotten into the Stanmobile, and just driven away.

Sixer had caught up to him, through some means or another tracked him down, and quickly figured out what the problem was -- a year’s worth of memory loss.

He just hadn’t figured out the proper cause and source of it. (...And he never would, never could, now, would he? The dumb genius… the ever-and-always _dumbest_ genius.)

Bill has no doubt at all what must have happened after that. Sixer would’ve done the same thing for Stanley that he’d done for Bill, all-unknowing. --He’d have tried to jog Stanley’s memory with tales and stories of their own shared experiences.

And right away, Stanley would have realized that something was wrong.

Because Bill has a little voice, a little tug of gut instinct inside him, that Stanley doesn’t have.

Where Stanley Pines would take that last little bit out on the edge and dial it up to eleven, _every single time_ , just to see if he could squeeze out a little bit more, _Bill_ had warred with instinct against memories of what he ‘should’ do and… more often than not, the instinct had won out over the memories. Bill had decided that ‘it was enough’. That he didn’t _need_ to do anything more.

And Sixer had **loved** him for it.

He’d been content to stop on more than one occasion that Stanley Pines never would. And there had been so many times, so very many of them, where Bill is now sure that Stanley would _never_ have been able to leave it at ‘just that’, even if he’d tried. He would have _had_ to have pushed it that much further.

Bill had been _content_. Bill had had what he’d really wanted out of everything, deep down at the heart of things -- he’d been freed, was finally well and truly free of _everything_ that had been holding him down and chaining him back, and _on top of that_ he’d had Sixer back, too. The rest had been details that he couldn’t remember, while the emotions left behind had fit well enough with what Stanley’s memories had told him that he wanted; so _of course_ he’d been perfectly happy to go when Sixer said go, running and keeping pace right alongside him, and stop when Sixer had wanted to stop, to regroup and rest and recover. He hadn’t really pushed back much, except for a handful of times when Sixer had been putting himself in what he had been sure had been extreme danger for no reason or benefit out of anything.

He’d done things that Stanley would never have done, stopped when Stanley could never have stopped himself, and Sixer had been _happy_ about his newfound level of adult-like and mature self-control; on multiple occasions, he’d told him so outright, with more than a little relief.

Bill can not imagine what that must have felt like for Stanley, to hear about all the things they had done together -- an entire year’s worth of _good_ memories -- and to then realize that Sixer hadn’t recognized at any point that it wasn’t his own brother that he had been doing all those things with, that instead he’d mistaken a _demon_ for _him_.

_**\--And then liked the demon better.** _

Stanley had realized that it hadn’t been him. And he must have realized at some point that going on another boat trip… would have been putting himself up against someone who he could never hope to match, because Stanley Pines _wasn’t what Sixer really wanted_ , and it makes Bill want to cry tears of frustration and anger, pain and sadness, hopeless rage and an endless fatigue.

Stanley Pines can’t be the brother Sixer wants, because he isn’t Bill Cipher.

Bill Cipher can’t be the friend Sixer wants, because he isn’t Stanley Pines.

Stanley had left, because Stanley was and is just as angry with Sixer for his utter blindness as Bill is.

Because he can't be what Sixer wants him to be, either, and he doesn't want to know what will happen if Sixer ever finds out, any more than Bill does, because they _both_ know that whatever it will be, it's going to be bad.

And then neither of them will have him. If they ever really had him in the first place.

And it hurts _it hurts **IT HURTS**_.

Sixer isn’t his, won’t be his, _can’t_ be his, and yet Bill still _wants_.

Bill SCREAMS.

\---

Bill doesn’t feel well.

Bill is floating, all but flying, above the treetops, and is heading in the direction of the town.

It’s nighttime, it’s dark out, and it’s the first time (...since Weirdmageddon?...) that Bill realizes that he _glows_.

...Not a lot, just a little, but he does. Glow. Just a little bit.

It makes him wonder if, should anybody look up, anybody could see him from the ground.

It’s not a very _bright_ glow, it’s quite dim. But still. It’s there.

And he’s not sure if it’s supposed to be.

Bill doesn’t feel very well at all. ...Actually, he feels downright _sick_ , almost ill.

There’s something about the trees, the woods, that presses in on him, an odd kind of pressure that he hadn’t quite noticed before.

Or, well, he had noticed it before, but he isn’t so sure that it had felt like _this_ to him, before.

He’s starting to realize that there’s a big difference between being out here, in the middle of the woods with no-one else around, and being in or near the Shack, around people.

‘The Mystery Shack is full of dreams,’ Soos had said once, begging him to keep the place open, and Bill is starting to realize that that may have been a literal fact, and not just for Soos.

All those tour groups… people walked into that mystery museum looking for something, and they gave it to them: someone else’s dreams.

And then they gave those people the opportunity to make those dreams their own.

And Bill is beginning to realize that he had fed off of those dreams, that energy, every day that he’d been in there.

It makes him reconsider what it might mean to be a muse, because he’d _helped_ with that -- _he’d helped Soos do that_. He’d floated there, and entertained and startled and surprised them all, all those people. He’d helped create dreams, and make them all the more real for them.

And he’d fed on those dreams a bit, yes, but those new dreams wouldn’t have been there in the first place, if not for him! He’d _inspired_ them, to come about, to be. ...And he’d always taken less than he’d helped give to them, that hadn’t been there before, so was it really so bad?

The woods are very much different than the Shack, though. In the Shack… Bill hadn’t really _tried_ to feed on anything; there’d been an excess, so much so that the dreams and emotions of those people had overflowed, saturated the place, over and over again. He’d practically absorbed it in through his skin, slowly, gently, easily, over time. And it had felt good.

But whatever is out in the woods, that has saturated everything out _here_... it’s a very different kind of pressure, and Bill finds himself pushing back on it, against it. Because whatever this is, he _doesn’t_ want it inside him, he is pretty sure.

Out here, he feels like he’s holding his breath in a way that has nothing to do with having lungs, and the energy out here itches against his outer surface. He doesn’t want to _think_ about what it might do to him if it somehow gets _underneath_ it.

He may feel vaguely ill just then, but it’s a feeling that’s coming from outside him right now, trying to push its way from the outside-in. Deep down, at the central core of him, he feels almost balanced, in an odd way that reminds him of the circle in the birdcage always trying to center him back in place, and _that’s_ the energy he took in from the Shack, helping him feel that way, he’s sure.

The stuff out here… feels more like a **drug**. One that he could easily get high on. He feels like he could breathe it in, in a way that wouldn’t in any way involve lungs, and… he’d just breath in again. And again. And again. And he’d keep doing that. He’s pretty sure that once he starts, he’d never be able to _stop_ , and he’s not exactly sure what this stuff would do to him once it’s inside him, but he’s pretty sure that _balancing him_ **isn’t** it.

No, he’s pretty sure it’d do just about the opposite of that to him: overbalance him beyond any semblance of being or sanity, tip him over and just keep on going, and he doubts he would even care, once it’s started. He’s almost certain of it.

What this means is that he’d better find some other way to get energy out of or from people, or he’ll either eventually go back to being grey, or -- more likely -- pull in a ‘breath’ one day because he can’t help but do so, and then go completely off-the-rails insane within a _very_ short period of time.

...Not that he isn’t already insane. He’s pretty sure that a good solid half of the time, he forgets he’s Bill Cipher and still thinks he’s Stanley Pines. _But._

He needs to think of someplace else that he can go, because there’s no way that he can go back to the Shack -- not now, not ever. Never again.

...The closest thing he can think of that’s similar to the Shack is the Tent of Telepathy, but one, there’s Gideon, and two, he’s pretty sure that the whole thing’s been shut down for good (which he really is perfectly happy with, if anyone ever thinks to ask him), and three, he doubts that the energy that Gideon Gleeful would generate from one of _his_ shows would be _anything_ like what he and Soos could produce out of the people at the Shack.

He’s pretty sure that whatever energy Gideon might help produce from what he does, from those slack-jawed idiots who he charms and bedazzles and leaves blinking and dazed, with the mental equivalent of artificial sweetener poured directly in their eyes and ears and hands like it’s water, would be… just another kind of drug.

And Bill doesn’t want any part of that anyway.

(He’s pretty sure that he hates Gideon Gleeful almost as much as Stanley Pines does, when it comes down to it, and possibly for very much the same set of reasons. Gideon is superficial, and shallow, and fickle, and a coward, and there is nothing substantial to him to back up his fake so-called charm.)

So, no. The Tent of Telepathy is definitely out, for quite a lot of very good reasons.

Anything happening in municipal government buildings like the courthouse and the police station and the town hall will do absolutely nothing for him, Bill is very sure. And he knows the mall is someplace where dreams go to die. So that leaves… what, small businesses? Convenience stores? Who dreams in those?

He can’t actually think of anyplace else where people would go to dream on purpose, other than in their own houses and in their own beds.

So he drifts around the town, well overhead, just looking at the buildings that are there, one by one. He thinks that, if he can’t think of a place, maybe he’ll be able to recognize one on sight, instead?

And, weirdly enough, **he does**.

He comes to an almost-literal screeching halt mid-air when he spots it.

The actual look of the building reminds him of the Mystery Shack, even. And when he sees it, he can’t help but drift closer, almost hypnotized by the promise of it.

\--Yes, it’s a municipal government building, but it’s the least government-anything that you can get out of one of those things.

And Bill can barely remember the last time that he’s been inside one of these, but he can remember what it _feels_ like: dusty calm, faded memories, a soft muted and pleasant sort of peace.

(...Stanley remembers; these are Stanley’s memories he’s dredging up, but he can’t find it in him to care that they’re Stanley’s and not really his, the memories are so nice. He’s not sure that he, as a triangle, has ever been inside one of these structures, or anything like this before, but that hardly matters _now_ , because…)

It’s perfect; there’s no other word for it.

Gravity Falls is a small town, so the building likely keeps small-town hours like the one at Glass Shard Beach did, but that’s okay. He doesn’t need a big-city central one, where they’re open every day, twenty-four hours round the clock, even on Sundays, because who knows when a person might want a book?

\--It’s the Gravity Falls Library, and even Stanley Pines, who was no great reader, had found something to love within a library’s walls, once upon a time, a long long time ago.

Because if there’s one place where dreams come to be born _and shared_ , it’s a library.

Treasure Island. Captain Blood. The Swiss Family Robinson. Books of pirates and swashbuckling adventure and treasure, of shipwreck and survival. If Stanley hadn’t read those books, those stories, he never would have thought of the Stan o’ War as an actual achievable dream.

And it had been, too. It was.

He never would have thought survival at all possible at age seventeen with the clothes on his back and no high school diploma, either, with just a car and a half-full tank of gas and a pocket full of spare change and lint to his name. And that had been too, as well.

There had been one winter, early-on in those ten years of homelessness, when he’d just barely been scraping by, in the city, when the Stanleymobile had broken down. He’d been stuck, trying to scrape funds together one way or another to get it repaired, while also keeping himself from starving or freezing to death out on the streets.

He’d spent his days out working dead-end laborer’s jobs for a dollar or two, and his nights in the library, staying warm by curling up in a chair with a good book (...usually one that was on car repair and maintenance...) and trying not to get caught out sleeping when he inevitably dozed off in a quiet corner, where no-one would think of harming him.

It had been slow-going without glasses to help him read by, but… those times had been the most peaceful that he’d had out of all those first ten desperate years away from his home.

He hadn’t really appreciated the library as a safe haven until then, no matter how much Sixer had talked to him of that very same benefit when they’d been younger...

...but he’s certainly starting to reacquaint himself with the concept of a library as a safe haven now.

People come to libraries, Bill knows (...Stanley knew…), when they both want and need certain things. Ideas. Information. Help. Understanding. Dreams. A safe haven for their minds, body and soul. And why not, when there are new discoveries to be made just around every corner -- simply reach out and pick any book up off of any shelf!

It’s a building built for the express purpose of containing, storing, and disseminating knowledge to all those who wish to have it, and Bill… oh, this _resonates_ with him, so very much.

He knows lots of things -- or he did, once. And he wants to know them all again, and more.

\--He wants to do more than just _know_ things, he wants to _understand_ those things, too.

He knows that libraries are not all happy excitement, shock and awe like the Shack can be. There can be a lot of quiet desperation here, searching for something that’s sorely needed. Researching something in the depths of despair, knowing that you’ll only find the answer that you were looking for, an answer that perhaps isn’t the one you ever wanted or meant to find. There can be frustration, as you try to learn something that you know is well-beyond you. And there can be extreme levels of stress, as you try to meet a deadline that’s fast-approaching, that is all-or-nothing, one-shot and it’s gone and over with and passed you by...

But fiction is the flip-side of reality is an illusion is dreams, and there’s a lot of hope here, too. There’s every flavor of emotion, available and waiting for him here, because anyone -- even him -- can pick and choose their own adventure here, whatever they wish and want to do, traveling wherever and however and whenever they want to go, with a book as their guide, so long as they have quietly set aside the time for reading it, and most who come here do. And a person who comes to that book for that purpose, alone, can pick it up and set it down and come back to it later, resume their studies and their adventuring at their own time and pace and at their own speed, and isn’t that a kind of time-controlling magic in and of itself?

With time and the right book, Bill knows that a person can make their mind free in ways that their body may never be able to be, despite of and in spite of all the rules that might otherwise be around them, tying them up and tearing them down.

A library is a building filled with books of all shapes and sizes, a not-quite infinite sea of flat little pieces of paper. And what were books but flattened-out written-down thoughts, thoughts that are just waiting to become a unique conversation spanning across time and space with every new reader -- thoughts that speak of far more than a flat world, that exist for the purpose of expanding out minds young and old in several dimensions at once, and inspire dreams of a depth that might as well be bottomless for how far down they can be plumbed?

This is a library, and Bill knows, even before entering it, that _**this place is his**_.

And so he enters and claims this place of dreams and dreamers as his own.

\---


End file.
